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The Energy Blog is where all topics relating to The Energy Revolution are presented. Increasingly, expensive oil, coal and global warming are causing an energy revolution by requiring fossil fuels to be supplemented by alternative energy sources and by requiring changes in lifestyle. Please contact me with your comments and questions. Further Information about me can be found HERE.

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February 18, 2007

Cold Storage for Wind Power

The production of wind energy is quite variable, relatively unpredictable and not necessarily occurring at peak demand, thus as its use becomes more widespread it becomes more problematic to integrate it into the grid than conventional sources of power as it is not easily accommodated by switching on and off conventional energy suppliers, like coal fired power plants. The "Night Wind" project in the Netherlands uses an energy management methodology in which existing refrigerated warehouses are used to store wind energy produced during periods of low demand (at night) and then recover this energy during high demand periods (primarily during the day) thus relieving the grid of some of its demand during peak periods. An article in Nature described the process as follows:

The idea seems simple. Say you lowered the temperature of all large coldstores in Europe by just 1°C during the night when electricity demand is low, then let it rise 1°C by switching them off during the day when demand is at peak. The net effect would be that the warehouses would act as batteries -- potentially storing 50,000 megawatt-hours of energy -- i.e. store over twice the projected 2010 EU average hourly wind power production.

And as the refrigerated warehouses already exist, practically no extra cost should be needed to store as much as 50,000 megawatt-hours of energy.

The first tests will be done in the Netherlands this year. Wind turbines will be erected on site, and the warehouse's refrigeration system control will be adapted to store the produced wind energy during the night. These tests will be completed in 2008.

For daytime situations, the "Night Wind" system control will make decisions when to sell the produced energy and when to use it to operate the warehouse's refrigeration system.

Night Wind Project main goals:

Integrating renewable energy resources into the European energy service network by providing new facilities for energy storage.

Increasing the economic value of wind energy by providing means to deliver the energy at peak demand hours.

Increasing the competitiveness of cold storage facilities by providing adding “energy storage” as an additional service to be provided for the European energy service network.

The overall impact is that the project will offer a solution to integrate wind energy with energy storage in the European electrical grid, giving space to a further growth in the use of wind energy worldwide and a contribution to the Kyoto targets at the same time.

Nature adds some more details about the first tests of the Night Wind idea.

Later this year, Sietze van der Sluis, head of refrigeration and heating technology at The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) in Delft and his team will start a demonstration project by setting up a wind turbine next to the Netherlands' largest coldstore, in Bergen op Zoom, a small town in the SouthWest of the country. It shouldn't be technically difficult, he says -- it's really just a question of developing software to match the temperature of the warehouses with electricity demand, turning the fridge on and off as the supply from the wind plant and the demand from consumers change during the day.

An introduction to cool energy storage, by my alma mater can be found here.

This sounds like a very simple and inexpensive way to decrease our peak power usage. Lacking wind power it would seem that considerable power savings could be achieved by operating refrigerated spaces of all types on off peak power as much as possible (if they are not already), analogous to running water heaters on off peak power, but with a much larger payoff.

Comments

This article seems misleading. Energy is not being stored at night, it is being consumed at night. Energy is not being supplied during the day, demand is being reduced.

Steam power plants can easily change power to match demand (they are not switched on and off). Maybe someone can explain why building more windmills than are needed is a good thing for the environment.

Given that large users can pay less for off-peak power, wouldn't many of the operators of cold warehouses already be doing this?
I'd put this in the category of efficiency improvement rather than storage. Meanwhile we do need to improve energy storage of all kinds including thermal ones - which have scalability as one of their advantages. Projects like the Dutch Road Energy Systems one that collects heat from roads, stores it in aquifers and uses it for commercial and domestic heating and cooling as well as for keeping roads ice-free in winter, show that large scale thermal storage systems work. Improved insulation springs to mind as one technology that is always worth doing better - it could make the energy used in the above example available (via insulated pipes) much further away.

Run the extra heat into the ground instead of the hot air in summer. And use cool air as a heat sink for the condenser coils in winter.

Why not store coolness in the thermal mass of schools, malls, and large buildings too? Or heat during heating season all with wind powered electricity running geothermal heat pumps? That would reduce peak demand by a huge amount. And conserve a huge amount of generation capacity now devoted to air conditioning and resistance electric heating.

It could conserve enough electricity to charge up plugin vehicles. Another great storage sink for the grid.

TES Thermal storage increases the efficiency of the generator, the efficiency of the transmission lines and the efficiency of the end usera AC or refrigeration equipment.

It's the ony time proven solution to building more coal fired power plants.

Even without the environmental issues, economics demand no new power plants.

Consumers need help from local and state government to reduce the cost of electricity.

Demand and supply are the major components of the cost of electricity. If we lower peak demand, supply will increase and the cost of power will fall significantly.

The primary method available to reduce demand is to make ice when electricity is cheap. Melt the ice for air conditioning when electricity is expensive or in high demand. This is a simple alternative to spending billions building new coal fired electric power plants.

Thermal Energy Storage, TES systems have been in use in Texas since the 1920s when three churches had systems installed. There are more than 5000 systems operating in the US now. One of the original applications was to use a small inexpensive compressor to make ice all week long and then melt all that ice to cool the sanctuary for two hours on Sunday. A common TES system is using tank type water heaters (hot thermal storage) to avoid large instantaneous gas or electric water heaters.

So why don’t we find a TES air conditioner in every house and small business? The answer is also simple:
• Most electric rates are averaged so it is not less expensive to buy electricity when it should be cheap and it is not more expensive to buy electricity in high demand periods when the price should be exponentially higher.
• In very round numbers it costs thousands of dollars per kW (or ton of A/C) to fund the construction of electric generation plants, transmission and distribution (TD) infrastructure. There are no mechanisms to divert funds from coal fired generators to funding TES systems in your home or business. The current conservative estimate of avoided costs to build generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure is $1000. per kW per year. This adds up to more than $45,000. over the 15 year life of a 3 ton TES system.
Should we invest $45,000 in new coal generating plants or invest a fraction of that in your home TES system?

If the above economic rationalization isn’t enough to convince you, consider the following additional benefits on TES.
• Running your air conditioner at night to make ice for daytime use is much more efficient because the ambient outside temperature is much lower and you’re a/c unit operates more efficiently.
• Running the generating turbine at night is much more efficient for the same reason, lower nighttime temperatures.
• All power plants run more efficiently when they are fully loaded and demand is predictable.
• Transmission and distribution is more efficient at night.
A massive deployment of TES will postpone the need to build additional power plants for many years and lower the cost of power for consumers. We can land on the moon. Why can’t we make ice?

The domestic 60-gal hot water tank is the cheapest way to store energy during off-peak times and reduce peaks by 4.5Kw per tank or home.

All what is required is a $60 programmable electronic 40 Amps timer installed (by yourself in about 10 minutes) next to the hot water tank.

One city (with independant power distribution network) has already done that with 'remote controlled timers' and got ride of significant peaks by turning most hot water heaters off 6 to 8 hours a day. Customers dont even notice it.

Of course, remotely reducing heating and A/C in stores, shopping malls etc by 2 to 4 degrees during peak hours would also help and would be very easy to do.

I always wondered why power companies (+ Ferderal and States/Provincial authorities) don't seem to be interested in simple solutions.

Wow! after reading all those comments, I guess there are many wind generator fans besides me. I think that was the main topic.
If I may make a comment in the form of a question for dummies? I love windmills. I,m just old enough to remember seeig a few around that were used to pump water for human and farm animals and also crop irrigation if needed. They were copied from old European designs that were used to grind grains and practice slaying for crazy knights with lances. Although I have never seen them I have read that electric wind generators were quite common in the West to generate power for individual farmers. The rural electrification Put a halt to all that until recently. The question is. Could a portion Of that wind energy be stored via a flywheel base? Also, could that same method be used at sea to stabilize wind generators in deeper waters?

The potential of this kind of intelligent consumption is tremendous. It is also vital for large scale roll-out of renewable energy as well as being economical and just good sense with conventional energy!

I have a naïve hope that more/cheaper IT technology with ubiquitous microchips will reduce the extra effort required to near-zero in the future, at least in all new appliances.

Flywheels certainly can be used for power storage, but developing the materials that can withstand the huge forces has been an ongoing challenge. You can see some more about that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage

While the "NIght Wind" project is an interesting and worthwhile form of Energy Storage worth pursuing and exploring to its fullest, it should also be pointed out that some of the opening statements in this blog are slightly misleading -- in terms of describing wind energy as being "quite variable" and "relative unpredictable" -- leading an uninformed reader to wonder whether this aspect of wind power is unaddressed and a mystery to wind plant operators and utilities alike. In fact, this is not the case and the wind industry has, in fact, undertaken considerable effort in understanding and managing the variable nature of wind power and how it interacts with utility operations and system dynamics under a variety of scenarios and situations. To learn more on this topic, I would strongly urge readers to learn more about the "state of the art" in wind integration by reading this short summary report from the Utility Wind Integration Group (UWIG) at: http://www.uwig.org/IntegrationStateoftheArt.htm

Even more information and detailed reports are available at: http://www.uwig.org/opimpactsdocs.html

I don't think we are going to stand in the way of anyone who wants to do more wind, but 20% is a huge lift in the context of today's electricity system and national energy policy. Rome was not built in a day.

Gotta get more proactive Tom. We are in a bad situation here with global climate change and war over oil and nuclear proliferation.

I think it's as big an emergency as WW2. Immediate action is needed. Estimates that cap wind at 20% are not helpfull.

I have noticed that very often the heads of environmental organizations that spend most of their time inside the beltway do not understand the urgency that people at the grassroots feel. They think and act at DC pace. It is a whole different reality zone.

Check out what a blog debate on Cape wind has become Tom. It is interesting how rumors of intermittency are constantly used by the opposition. And the bird kill excuse. And the air safety excuse. But get this new one!

Supposedly cape Wind will interfere with radar and threaten...gasp...HOMELAND SECURITY!!

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/2/25/65336/7434

I counter with the link to that gristmill article about the wind farm study. And the Audobon link.

We recently tested a pure mechanical design for wind powered refrigeration. Initial results look good we are now trying to determine if there is a market and if so at what price point.

This design has shown a 70F drop in temperature with 8 MPH winds and has withstood 100 MPH winds with no damage. It does not use any refrigerant or other caustic chemicals and we have a option that allows the point of refrigeration to be up to 200 foot away from the wind collectors.

We have had very good results from horizontal wind collectors that can be mounted on roofs in less than 2 vertical foot and are very light weight. This makes it relatively easy to have an indoor freezer or fridge powered by outdoor wind. There is no electricity involved so the cold is stored in the form of a water or antifreeze solution.

We are thinking about releasing a product that would provide a 5 cubic foot freezer capable of maintaining 25F on an average of 3 hours per day of 8 MPH winds. The system is capable of substantially more chilling than needed at one time so we are thinking about lining the interior of the freezer with a human safe propylene glycol solution that freezes at 15F. The lower phase change temp should help it keep the food below freezing even during extended periods of no wind.

The same system can provide basic refrigeration simply by building an insulated housing that captures the waste cold from the freezer compartment.

The question we are struggling with is anybody interested in a light weight electricity free freezer for use in off grid locations and if so what price point would it have to hit to attract a domestic audience. Is there a USA Domestic and Canada market or is it only applicable for poverty stricken countries.

One interesting facet of this design is that it does not dump any heat into the interior of the structure which means that unlike traditional refrigerators it would actually provide a net chilling effect to the building where it is installed.

It would require nothing more than a cresent wrench and screw driver for installation although a drill may be needed to drill ½ hole in the exterior roof. Anybody with sufficient skills to install the tubing for a ice maker could install the system but it does require running a two tubes from roof or exterior mounted wind collector to the interior fridge.

Energy storage seems a very interesant subject concerning all our future vision of energy. So, I decided tha my final report at university was about energy storage, specifically about the technical and economical feasiblity of the large-scale integration of ESS viewed from an electric utility. I post this comment just in case someone should now or have any information about this. Thank you very much.

Dear All,
I am from Indonesia and looking for Ice Maker or Cold Storage system with alternatives energy: wind, solar and other renewable energy source.
This Cold Storage/Ice Maker will help fishery man in rural area where there is no electric power avalaible. The capacity about 1-5 ton per day of ice.
Is there any information using Ammonia Absorption to generate low temperature brine water with economic price?

Myth #1 Wind turbines are very noisy. This is not true at all. In fact wind turbines are very quiet. The truth is your kitchen refrigerator may make more noise than these wind turbines.

Myth #2 Your Wind Turbine will affect your television.. This is not true as well. I will teach you where to place your turbine in order not to have this happen. With the right tools and instructions you will be an expert in no time, not to mention watching your favorite TV. show.

Myth #3 Wind Turbines don’t really produce enough power. In fact Wind Turbines can produce upwards of 85% power 24/7. Not even your power company produces 100% of power 24 hours a day.

Solar is great source for supplying electricity and heat from the same collectors. And cooling can be acomplished most efficiently by simply circulating fluid through pipes underground and in the homes inner structure using solar electric powered pumps. Use it.